


Teenagers Scare the Living Shit Out of Me

by mymaskismywords



Series: Renegade [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Meta humans, Mutants, Mutual Pining, New York City, Original Fiction, Politics, Slow Burn Romance, found family trope, lots of side romance, superhuman abilities
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-20 06:00:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17616845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mymaskismywords/pseuds/mymaskismywords
Summary: The man standing in the rightmost side of the front row in the juror’s box cleared his throat. Everyone leaned forward without even realizing.“We, the jury, find the defendants not guilty on all charges.”Nita heard nothing after that. It seemed momentarily as though all sound had been muted. On the screen, in the courtroom, uproar was visible, people were standing and shouting, the camera was being jostled from side to side, the judge was banging his gavel repeatedly to restore calm, the camera was finally knocked off kilter and it fell, crashing to the floor. The screen went black and Peter stood to shut it off entirely.Nita noticed without really processing that everyone else was just as still and silent as she was. All twelve of them were statues, paralyzed by horror and fear. None of them could say how long they sat there. They didn’t even give away to their nervous habits, so great was their distress.





	Teenagers Scare the Living Shit Out of Me

**Author's Note:**

> This is an original story that I'm currently work shopping. Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated.

Despite the fact that Nita Holmes was moving rather quickly, her footfalls were still eerily silent; not by any conscious effort, but rather, by a long developed instinct for moving efficiently and without drawing attention. A subconscious mark of intensive training that she never quite managed to hide from suspicious eyes. The innocent walks clumsily, with no fear of detection, while only the panther on the hunt walks like a shadow.

  
With her stoic expression, squared shoulders, and long, purposeful strides, any observer would have pronounced her, without hesitation, the panther on the hunt. But Nita wasn’t on the hunt, not in the traditional sense anyway. She wasn’t a predator closing in on any particular prey, rather she was a panther with a destination in mind. Her only prey was a place, and her only hunger, an impatience to get there.

  
Her body may give the impression of calculating hunts in a dense jungle, but her mind was fully occupied with the afternoon Brooklyn streets that she knew so well.  
The connection between Nita and the panther are easy to distinguish, however, to the people of New York City and even beyond, her animal counterpart was the Nightingale. Quite a stretch between the strong, loping jungle cat, and the delicate, melancholy nighttime song bird.

  
At this very moment, however, Nita was neither panther nor nightingale. She was a waitress coming off a shift at a rather tacky fifties diner in uptown Brooklyn. And she was late.  
She practically jogged the rest of the way, not even earning sidelong glances from the people she rushed past on the street. Such was the nature of the neighborhood. Sometimes you saw teenage girls running past in waitress uniforms and you moved on with your life.

  
Nita’s destination was in the hazy middle of Brooklyn, where destitute downtown stood side by side with gentrified uptown. One could stand in front of a Star Bucks and see known drug dens. A culture shock on both sides.

  
On Nita’s right loomed a gymnasium sized, three story building, gray and crumbling, surrounded by a ten foot tall chain link fence. Windows were broken and boarded up, persistent weeds pushed through the cracked pavement of an outdoor basketball court. The local YMCA, bought and shut down five years ago by someone who wanted to build a pricey apartment complex. The deal fell through and now the building stood abandoned and left to fester inside its own fence.

  
There was a narrow alley along the YMCA’s left side, keeping it just a little distant from the next building over, (a pawnshop), and Nita cut down this alley, unnoticed by anyone. At the back corner of the fence, she moved an empty dumpster a few feet over and revealed a sizable hole in the chainlink. She crawled through with practiced ease.

  
Nita wasn’t too worried about getting caught. The YMCA was a regular haunt for her and the others. Still she was cautious as she made her way towards a certain backdoor, there was no reason to assume that the lot wouldn’t tempt unwanted invaders.

  
There was no sign of anyone as she jiggled the busted lock on the back emergency exit, and still no one as the door swung open silently, a result of routine oiling of its hinges.  
Darkness loomed beyond the door. Nita slipped inside and pulled the door closed quietly behind her.

  
The darkness was heavy, although there were windows high up along the walls, they were grimy and did nothing to alleviate the gloom. The space was also eerie in its openness, it gave the impression that you could walk on forever without ever finding light.

  
Nita placed a hand on the wall beside her and walked along it, running her palm across a dry and cracking material that she knew used to be mats along the gymnasium wall. There was another heavy door in the corner and she counted her steps as she moved towards it, thirty steps from the first door to the second, when she reached the door she went through it, into what used to be a multipurpose room. Standing just inside of the room, she crouched and swept her left hand out slowly, eventually feeling the cardboard box that they kept there. She extracted a flashlight and stood, thumbing it on. This room was harder to navigate in the dark. Most of the sporting equipment was removed when the building was sold, but a hazardous infrastructure of shelving and miscellaneous garbage remained. On the far right side of the room there was another door, leading to an anteroom that probably used to serve as a smaller storage space. As Nita made her way towards this anteroom she could just begin to make out whispering voices. She hurried up a bit.

  
When this door finally came into view, Nita noticed a strip of light coming from underneath. She turned the flashlight off and shouldered the door open, momentarily halting the whispering while she blinked to adjust her eyes to the sudden brightness. When she was able to properly see again and the chatter started back up she couldn’t help but smile. This small room in an abandoned YMCA felt like a second home to her, and to the eleven other teens gathered around the room. They had found it, furnished it with what they could and made it a place for themselves. They took pride in the shabby and mismatched furniture which included a sagging sofa, some standard classroom chairs, some folding chairs, and a few bean bags, a shag carpet which hasn’t seen light since the 1970’s, a plastic table and a small box TV. A small homemade generator was humming in the corner, bringing electricity to the room in an otherwise dark and cold building.

  
“I thought you were working today?” Owen Belmont asked, relaxing now that he saw that the intruder was just Nita. He was head and shoulders below everyone else where he sat on the beanbag, but he still managed to take up the most space as he was sprawled out, the whole of his tall and bulky frame spread eagle, practically lying on the floor. His eyes were blue and currently weren’t being blocked by his glasses since they were pushed up onto his head of dirty blonde hair. There were numerous reasons for Owen to do this so Nita didn’t even question it.

  
“I was supposed to be but they were overstaffed so they told me to go home.” She felt a sudden surge of anger and drew her jacket tighter around herself, trying to block the obnoxious firetruck red of her top, suddenly wishing she had something to change into.

  
Elliot Kingsley sat up a little straighter where he sat on the arm of the old sofa, perhaps taking notice of the bitterness in her voice.

  
“At least now you can be here with us.” He said, not unsympathetically. Like Owen, Elliot was tall, although not quite as tall. Elliot was also slim,with brown hair, brown eyes, and he was pale, and a bit freckled. He was seventeen, a year younger than Nita and Owen. He pulled his legs up a bit on the couch arm and motioned towards the small opening it created between him and Emmett Garfield. Emmett Garfield was also seventeen. About as tall as Nita ,and lean, with a head full of curly brown hair and brown eyes, he had a permanent set to his face, like he was always ready to laugh, just waiting for the perfect moment, for the joke to fully set in.

  
Nita took her seat, avoiding the eyes of her brothers, Matthew and Tate, sitting cross legged on the floor in front of the TV screen.

  
“Let’s get back to it, shall we?” Owen said, breaking the brief silence. He stood up and went to the TV, hitting the button to turn the volume back up.

  
When Nita entered the others were in the middle of a news story. The screen was filled with a perky, brunette newswoman, she looked young, energetic, practically bouncing with anticipation. There was a crowd behind her, jostling and moving constantly, contained within police barriers. And looming behind the crowd, the stoic impressive facade of carved marble and concrete, a staple of New York City courthouses. When the reporter spoke her voice was slow and deep, contrasting her girlish appearance.

  
“Excitement has reached a boiling point. The weekend gave us a glimpse of what to expect for today’s trial when groups camped out on the street in front of the historical New York State Supreme Court Building in preparation for what has come to be known as The Trial of the Century. At this very moment six members of a local DNA Purist group, known as ‘Crickets’, are on trial for the murder of a fourteen year old immigrant from El Salvador. The defense claims that the six defendants had ample reason to suspect Maria Flores a mutant with intention to harm, and that they were making a citizen's arrest, which is their legal right under the Good Citizens Act passed five years ago, when the situation got out of hand. The prosecution and defense are delivering their closing statements today, afterwards the jury will adjourn to deliberate.”

  
The news cut to interviews of the people standing in front of the courthouse.

  
“Did I miss anything important?” Nita asked, shocked that final statements were already being delivered.

  
“My dad’s in the courtroom.” Owen answered, the usual displeasure was in his voice, the displeasure was always there when he talked about his dad. “He says the defense showed a video of Maria Flores exhibiting metahuman abilities.”  
“And?”  
Owen shook his head, “He says the video showed her manipulating electricity.”  
“And?”  
“There’s contention, defense witnesses say the video’s genuine, prosecution says the video’s a fake.”

  
Elliot made a convulsive movement, a sort of jerk of his right hand towards his face, probably to bite his nails, a habit of his. He stopped himself, settling his hands back onto his lap. Nita looked up when she noticed the movement, not really perturbed until she noted a dark bruise blossoming along the bottom of his jaw.

  
“Elliot-” She started, brow furrowing, but he didn’t hear her, no one did, Robin Murdock had grabbed everyone’s attention with a question.

  
“So what’s all of this mean? Why the cloak and dagger shit from all of you?” A small, pale, seventeen year old spitfire, was Robin Murdock, with short cut black hair and dark eyes.

  
Surprisingly it was Elliot who answered first, his voice more heated than everyone was used to hearing from him, “It’s gonna come down to politics.” He said, “Since both sides had witnesses about the video the jurors are allowed to believe whatever they want to believe. Jurors who support what the Crickets do can say they believe the video’s real, and pro-mutants can say that the video’s a fake. It’s gonna come down to how many of each are on the panel.”

  
“What about people who don’t care either way?” Peter Sullivan asked from his seat on the other side of Emmett on the sofa. Peter, a short, bulky kid, sixteen years old, with light brown hair, glasses, and a knee brace on his right leg. A kid who laughed at everything whether he knew the joke or not, he was uncharacteristically serious today.

  
“You’d be hard put to find someone who doesn’t care anymore.” Owen said, a bit somberly, “Everyone’s got an agenda.”

  
“So what happens now?” Tate Holmes asked, he was Nita’s younger brother. The shortest of the siblings, with thick light brown hair and blue eyes, a small nose with a scar across the bridge. He was only 15.

  
This time it was Nita who answered, “If the Crickets get acquitted, it’s open season on mutants. It means even more danger for all of us.” It was the first time Nita had said her fears out loud to her brothers. Their expressions were unreadable. Nita was sure at that moment that they had come to the same conclusions themselves but were hoping that they were being paranoid.

  
“It’s not for sure.” Emmett cut in suddenly, perhaps wanting to lighten the tension that had settled in the room, “No matter which way the jury goes, no new laws or anything are at stake here. It doesn’t matter. We still have the same protections as we’ve always had.”

  
“We don’t have any protections!” Sadie Chrysler scowled. Sadie was a short, curvy girl, with long dark brown hair and bright blue eyes. Her parents were lawyers and avid pro-mutants, her political awareness of the situation was a bit keener than most. “This trial sets a precedence. If they get away with, everyone else will get away with it, all they’ll have to do is cite some ‘unfortunate accident’ and the jury will let it slide because they believe the Crickets are doing the right thing. It’s bullshit.”

  
“We don’t have to worry yet.” Matthew soothed, “They might still be found guilty.” Matthew was the tallest of the Holmes siblings. He had the same light brown hair as Tate, except Matthew’s hair grew straight up out of his head, giving him the appearance of a few extra inches. He had Tate’s nose although instead of a scar he had a line of freckles, and Tate’s blue eyes.

  
Nita was the odd one out of her siblings, she had a darker tint to her hair, her eyes were green rather than blue, and she lacked Matthew’s freckles.

  
The room had elapsed back into an anticipatory silence, the news had switched over to a story about some environmentally friendly improvements that were being planned for the city’s transportation system.

  
Nita studied the room, and felt a tightness settle on her chest. If the Crickets were to be released then everyone gathered here and countless other mutants in the city would eventually be targeted. There were twelve of them in that room, and she couldn’t help but wonder how many would survive if all hell were to break loose for mutants.

  
“Guys!” Owen suddenly yelped, everyone jumped. Nita wasn’t the only one lost in thought, and she also wasn’t the only one dwelling on the possible carnage the future held.  
“My dad just texted! He said that the jury’s filing back in!”

  
“What? I didn’t even know they had started to deliberate at all!” Elliot couldn’t stop himself from biting his nails this time, Nita couldn’t blame him, she had already started biting her lip, drawing a coppery taste of blood.

  
“Yeah. Apparently they left less than 20 minutes ago.” Owen’s voice was high and strained. He was clenching and unclenching his fist. All around there were signs of stress, from nail and lip biting, to foot tapping, to itching and ear pulling. Anxiety felt like a thirteenth body in the room, breathing down all of their necks.

  
The news cut suddenly and without warning. One second they were interviewing a bus driver and the next the screen showed a spacious but crowded courtroom. Spectators could be seen taking up every bench, and quite a few were standing, pressed against the walls. The judge was sitting, elevated above everyone else, his black robe making him even more pronounced. Twelve jurors stood in their box, their faces impassive. Six armed bailiffs stood behind a line of six convicts in orange jumpsuits, they were all handcuffed together. A buzzing of whispered talk could be heard from the watching crowd, but it fell to absolute silence with a single wave of the judge’s hand. Everyone held their breath. Nita felt that her heat had stopped beating.

  
The man standing in the rightmost side of the front row in the juror’s box cleared his throat. Everyone leaned forward without even realizing.

  
“We, the jury, find the defendants not guilty on all charges.”

  
Nita heard nothing after that. It seemed momentarily as though all sound had been muted. On the screen, in the courtroom, uproar was visible, people were standing and shouting, the camera was being jostled from side to side, the judge was banging his gavel repeatedly to restore calm, the camera was finally knocked off kilter and it fell, crashing to the floor. The screen went black and Peter stood to shut it off entirely.

  
Nita noticed without really processing that everyone else was just as still and silent as she was. All twelve of them were statues, paralyzed by horror and fear. None of them could say how long they sat there. They didn’t even give away to their nervous habits, so great was their distress.

  
Owen’s phone rang, it was a normally pleasing melody, but in that moment it was harsh and eerie, deepening the unease in the small space.

  
Owen answered the phone almost robotically, not even bothering to check the ID. It was his father, giving him an update on the trial. He answered in monosyllables, and in an even voice. Slowly feeling seeped back into the others.

  
“Well…That’s that.” Lorelei Grayson whispered, she sounded defeated. She stood up from the school chair that she was occupying. “I should probably get home.”

  
Nita sat up straighter, coming back to reality abruptly. “You shouldn’t go alone.” She said firmly. Lorelei laughed bitterly.

  
“I doubt that I’m going to get jumped on the street 20 minutes after the trial. Besides, I’m a big girl. I can handle myself.” Nita hesitated.

  
Lorelei was small and skinny, pale and freckled, brown eyed, her hair was cut into a bob and colored hot pink. Nita knew that Lorelei could hold her own. But that didn’t make her any less nervous.  
“I understand. But we should probably start getting in the habit of grouping up. I don’t think anyone should go out alone anymore.”

  
Lorelei’s brow furrowed, but she didn’t look like she was about to argue. Emilia Layne stood, another small, pale girl. She had short black hair, glasses, gray eyes, and a double triangle tattoo on her right wrist.

  
“I’ll go with her.” Emilia offered, “We don’t live far from each other anyway.” Nita nodded and the two girls bid everyone good night and left. Owen stood up, his conversation with his dad long done.  
“I should head out too. My dad thinks I’m at the library. Sadie, I can walk with you if you’re up for it.” Sadie looked up at the sound of her name and nodded, seemingly trying to shake out of a stupor. They left after bidding their own goodbyes.

  
Emmett paired up with Robin and they left also.

  
Peter stood and tossed a run away cushion at Elliot to arouse his attention. Elliot hardly looked up. He was staring intently at his lap, biting the nails on his right hand.  
“Elliot, we can head out whenever you’re ready. I’ll wait outside.”

  
“It’s probably not a good idea for you to wait outside alone.” Nita told him, but he shrugged.

  
“I’ll wait in the gym.” And he was gone without another word.

  
“That was weird.” Nita said. Elliot shrugged and bent to scoop up his bookbag. Nita caught sight of the bruise again.

  
“Hey, Elliot. How’d you get that bruise?” Nita didn’t miss how he quickly averted his gaze before answering.

  
“It’s nothing. Gym.”

  
“Oh.” Nita knew without a doubt that Elliot was lying, but she wasn’t sure whether or not now was the time time to push it. He chanced a glance at her just as he was about to leave.

  
“Stay safe. All of you.”

  
“You too.” The remaining four called to his retreating back.

  
There were a few more seconds of silence before Nita finally stood up and motioned Johanna Copland away from the corner she was occupying. Johanna was tall, with longer hair dyed black and gray eyes accentuated with black makeup. She kept to herself almost always, but found a form of comfort in her fellow mutants, at least the other eleven that she usually shared their hideout with.  
“We’ll buddy up.” Nita told her and Jo smiled.

  
Matthew and Tate followed the girls out into a chilly October night. The four of them slipped easily back into the foot traffic without being noticed.

  
Johanna and Nita’s brothers smiled to themselves as they watched Nita’s entire demeanor change now that they were back in the open.

  
Unbeknownst to her, she was remarkably more relaxed in the old storage room-turned-safe house, but she tensed back up out in the open. The docile house cat, the delicate song bird, while inside, the stalking panther, the nighttime singer of death hymns, while out in the open.

  
Perhaps Nita’s aura of primal danger was merely an illusion created by her demeanor, her stance, expression, and way of moving. Or perhaps it stemmed from actual ability. At that same moment as she stalked down the street, as in almost every moment, Nita had a standard military issue combat knife concealed on her hip. And when time came she could use it well.


End file.
